Borys Bradel's Blog: My vim initialization file

My vim initialization file

Tags: vim October 6, 2008

The following is my vim initialization file, the ".vimrc" in my home directory:

set nocompatible " use Vim settings instead of vi

set backspace=indent,eol,start " allow backspacing over all

" following 8 lines from vimrc example (note, autocmd cannot have empty lines)

" filetype plugin indent on " autoindent files

" augroup vimrcEx " put in autocmd group for easy removal

" au!

" " jump to last known position at start

autocmd BufReadPost *

\ if line("'\"") > 0 && line("'\"") <= line("$") |

\ exe "normal g`\"" |

\ endif

colorscheme torte " this is a nice black-background scheme

syntax enable " syntax highlighting

set showmatch " paren matching when inserting

set autoindent " autoindent only works after plugin

set shiftwidth=4

set softtabstop=4

set hlsearch " highlight last search

set history=50 " keep 50 lines of history

set ruler " show cursor position all the time

" swap ; and : in command mode to avoid pressing shift too much

nnoremap ; :

nnoremap : ;

imap <TAB> <C-H>

source ~/keyboard.qwerty2colemakb

That's the entire file. The commands are commented and relatively self explanatory, except for the last two: "imap <TAB> <C-H>" and "source ~/keyboard.qwerty2colemakb".

The first of these commands maps the tab key to the erase-previous-character command, which is control-h. The second loads in a file with commands that map the qwerty keyboard to a modified Colemak layout. The layout is nice in that it avoids excessive hand movements. The best place to practice is at this site, which also shows a different good layout called Asset. For me, both Colemak and Asset are better than Qwerty and Dvorak. My modifications change the position of the non-alphanumeric keys to suit my typing habits. The modified layout has the following keys on the keyboard (from left to right):

1234567890'=

qwfpgjluy;,/\

arstdhneio-

zxcvbkm().

And the following when shift is held:

!@#$%^&*[]"+

QWFPGJLUV:{}|

ARSTDHNEIO_

ZXCYBKM<>?

Each key can be modified using the inoremap command, which indicates a mapping in interactive mode with no recursion. For example, "inoremap e f" changes an "e" to an "f".